Those nonfiction books that purport to explain life, the universe, and everything will occasionally rocket to the top of the bestseller lists and stick there for months, like a wine stain that won't scrub from the carpet.

So far this year, the media has spent more time fretting about Barack Obama's negativity than it has on any of the arguments that were being mounted. Was Obama going too negative? Was it too soon? Oh no what is happening, in politics? And so the Obama campaign was broadly deemed to have "stumbled out of the gates." All of this presented Mitt Romney with a unique opportunity to come into June as the high-minded, positive candidate. Out of the gutter, above the fray, just talkin' economy with the folks, Obama is a nice guy who is in over his head. So we're at a loss to explain why Romney picked this week to cede this advantage, or at the very least risk, it by crawling down into the gutter himself. He closes out the month with a series of stunts that come across as either base or weird or vindictive, and none were absolutely necessary.

I am less interested in the business model than the value our culture is putting on what is still perhaps the most important news gathering institution in the world -- versus the value it is placing on a social media company.

Americans Elect was never a grassroots movement. At best, it was a well-funded organization in which a number of elites could dream up a fake democratic process and pretend they were above the silly infighting of the plebes.

Is the free market really free? Or does it come at the expense of civic values we neglect at our peril? That's one of many questions I found myself pondering after reading What Money Can't Buy by Michael J. Sandel.

But yesterday, after blogger Duncan Black labeled Friedman "the one true wanker of the decade," I admit I was wondering how Friedman would respond. Because that's a pretty harsh criticism. I mean, there have been mass murderers galore over the past decade. Also, Damien Hirst.

Thomas Friedman today discussed one of his favorite subjects, the "Arab awakening," which he did not predict in his extensive writing about the Middle East, and yet knew, from its very beginning, how it would affect the future there, in particular the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I was honored and humbled that syndicated columnist Tom Friedman this week suggested I consider running for president, putting me forward as a third choice to voters. But our need is bigger than for me -- or any other third-party candidate

The pundits who tell us that they crave a dramatic nonviolent Palestinian narrative can write the story of Khader Adnan, who has drawn comparisons to celebrated Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands. But they are not writing his story.

As Friedman bops from one global aerie to the next, absorbing the latest sweet whispers from the mesmeric elites he encounters, there's never a reason to end the pep rally. Everything just looks amazing once you're ahead of the curve.

Thank you, Fox News' Ed Henry, for the scoop that Thomas Friedman is at the White House today, and for pointing out that he may, at this minute, finally be in possession of the very deficit proposals that the White House made months ago.

Would it be too much to ask for someone -- perhaps one of his New York Times colleagues -- to give famously airheaded columnist Thomas Friedman a bit of an explanation of what is actually going on in the world of politics?

The new world environment includes clear shifts in what people look for and want from their careers, and from the organizations to which they'll commit their creative energies. These new realities are pushing companies to transform.